


Absolution

by Winginblood



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint Feels, Clint Needs a Hug, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, M/M, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 17:19:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4573029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winginblood/pseuds/Winginblood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Clint wants to do when he gets back to the Tower is grab some food and get some sleep. Things don't go to plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absolution

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea for this and much of it written almost 2 years ago. Thought it was about time I finished it. Events of the first Avengers movie and the pilot of Agents of Shield compliant only.

Clint allowed his body to slump against the mirrored wall as he rode the elevator to the upper reaches of the Avengers Tower, closed his eyes and sighed.

“Is everything alright, Agent Barton?” JARVIS asked, his calm voice floating down from somewhere in the ceiling.

“Hmmm, yes, thank you, JARVIS. Just tired.”

“A hard mission, sir?”

Clint considered his response. The mission had been a lot of things but hard wasn’t one of them. “Nope, not really. It was kinda boring, actually. Lots of freezing my ass off on cold rooftops and very little action. Guess I’m just not used to it anymore.”

He smiled ruefully. That sort of mission used to be his bread and butter and he used to actually kind of love it. But that was before Loki and the shitstorm he had brought with him, back when he and Natasha had kicked ass and taken names around the world all while Phil had been in his ear and waiting for them back at the safe house. He still sometimes got to kick ass and take names with Natasha, like he had these past couple of weeks, but the fact that Phil wasn’t their handler anymore pretty much sucked all the fun out of it. This one had been better than most though. Sitwell was a lot easier going and adaptable than the last schmuck he’d got stuck with. “What I need is a shower, coffee, sleep and food. Not necessarily in that order.”

“Of course. Would you like me to ask chef to prepare something or would you prefer I order something in for you?”

Clint thought for a moment, tempted just to go to his own apartment level and roll into bed with whatever he could snag from his kitchen on the way but, after three weeks away, anything that was still in his own refrigerator was probably approaching sentience by now and he needed something a bit more substantial than chips and candy. “By my reckoning last night should have been pizza night, right?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“Then let me out at the main lounge. I’ll raid the fridge for leftovers.”

“Very well, sir. There should be sufficient remaining. Let me know if you do require anything later. Good luck.”

JARVIS’ choice of closing words struck Clint as odd. Why would he need luck? Unless Thor, who had a habit of playing fast and loose with the toppings, was on planet and had been the one to do the ordering. That...that could be really bad. Clint shifted the weight of his bow case on his shoulder and straightened up when the elevator slowed as it approached the communal level. “Thanks, J.”

It hadn’t been anywhere in Clint’s plans that he would live in the newly anointed Avengers Tower but in the aftermath of the battle that had levelled large parts of the city he had been compromised all over again. The original grainy, blurred images of him that had been snapped on cellphones during the Battle of New York had been enhanced and cleaned up to the point of recognition and people from his life before SHIELD, people he’d been sure he would never see or hear from again, had turned up, had cheerfully claimed they were old lovers, and hey, why not add a very public outing as bi on national tv while they were at it, those were always fun, or lifelong best buddies. A couple of them had oh so helpfully provided clearer images for the various media outlets. Stark had been gleeful when he had got his hands on an old circus poster and Clint had been mortified when it had very briefly turned up on the bridge of the rebuilt helicarrier. He had some good memories of his time with the circus but purple Spandex and glitter was a look that he had worked very hard to scrub from his brain. 

The overall effect had rendered him all but useless to SHIELD after his face was plastered all over the internet as it meant that he couldn’t be considered for undercover work in countries with even the most restricted internet access. Which didn’t leave him a lot of options. He could still be a sniper and provide back up, of course, but without Phil on the other end of the comm it just wasn’t the same. Phil had spoiled him for any other handler. Phil had spoiled him for a lot of things. The Avengers action figures, while admittedly awesome, had sealed the deal and he’d become more or less a full time Avenger with occasional missions for SHIELD on the side instead of the other way around, as had been Clint’s original thoughts on the subject. Moving into the Tower had seemed to make sense at the time.

He had known it would be good for him to be around people who understood, people who wouldn’t be questioning his motives all the time. People who wouldn’t be giving him sly looks. He couldn’t get that at SHIELD anymore. Too many of the people there looked at him like his eyes were going to brighten again, like they were expecting him to start shooting at them every second, and it freaked him the fuck out every time it happened. It was just one more thing that Loki had taken from him. Most of those people were never his friends before Loki but at least they hadn’t been fucking afraid of him. They had trusted him. He needed to be around the people who had simply taken Natasha’s word for it that he wasn’t under Loki’s control anymore and would have their backs as long as there was breath in his body.

It _had_ helped. 

Because Clint didn’t trust easily. 

Which was probably the understatement of the decade. His abandonment issues had issues of their own. He had had a life full of people leaving him, willingly or not, of handing him back, of just generally not being there when he really, absolutely, needed them, and it had made him more self reliant and emotionally closed off to friendship and love than anyone ever should be. No one got too close, no one got in anymore. Not even Natasha really because he had always known she was only there on her own terms and could disappear again anytime she chose. He hoped she would take him with her when she did but he had always been prepared for her leaving on her own. He loved her, never once doubted her loyalty to him, and eventually to Coulson and the team, but knew it would only ever be a temporary thing. It may last years, decades hopefully, but he never thought she would be around forever. 

And that was okay.

But Coulson? Clint never even saw him coming. Coulson had gotten so far under Clint’s skin, seemingly without even trying, without Clint even being aware it was happening until it was way too fucking late, that it had physically hurt when Phil had died. It had gone on hurting for months, haunting Clint’s dreams and wrecking his sleep.

These guys, though? This ragtag bunch of such hugely different characters that they should _never_ have been able to get along much less form the effective fighting team that Fury had drawn together and called The Avengers? It turned out that between them they were just about the best thing that could ever have happened to Clint right at that moment.

Natasha...carried on being Natasha, someone who knew him inside and out, body and soul, and wasn’t afraid to use that knowledge against him when necessary to get him out of bed and interacting with the world. She was also the only person he felt safe enough with to let himself cry for Phil in front of.

Thor, when he was around and had got past the need to apologise for his brother’s behaviour every five minutes, was more than happy to spar with Clint to the point of exhaustion on the days when sleep just wouldn’t come. He was also excellent at getting fall down drunk with. 

Stark. Well Tony was still a huge pain in the ass but the man was also an engineering genius. So far, anything Clint could come up with Tony could find a way to stick it on an arrow and make it work. Also, his car collection was to die for and he didn’t mind if Clint wanted to borrow one occasionally.

Bruce became the centre of calm in Clint’s life after he moved into the Tower, the person he could go to that could bring him back from the edge when all he wanted to do was scream and yell and break things, mostly himself. He taught Clint relaxation and breathing techniques and he always had a supply of the really, _really_ good weed that he was willing to share.

And then there was Steve. Captain America. It was so damn hard at first for Clint to talk to him because Steve was _everything_ that Coulson had thought he would be and Clint would remember things like how, when Phil had been talking so animatedly about the uniform redesign, he had teased Phil about not letting his fanboy show when he got the chance to meet Steve when he was awake. Clint had to walk away from Steve each time it happened before he broke down, pretending not to see the hurt in Steve’s eyes, happier to look like a complete asshole as he turned his back than trust his voice to make even the crappiest of excuses.

Thankfully it wasn’t in Steve’s nature to give up on Clint. He just found another way. The first couple of times he had walked into the gym when Clint was using it, Clint had thought it was an accident. Steve hadn’t spoken to him, just nodded a brief, polite hello, then got down to punching the stuffing out of a heavy bag or two – even the ones that Tony designed and built for him were made to break eventually when Tony realised that Steve seemed to need it - and left Clint to his own workout on the other side of the room. Then one day Steve had started talking about Bucky as they’d both gone about working up a sweat. Steve hadn’t put any pressure on Clint for any kind of response or reply, just talked and shared things from his and Bucky’s life, both before and during The War. It happened two or three times before Clint had responded in kind, offering up small reminiscences of Phil, and they had gone on from there. Clint thought it had been good therapy for both of them, bonding over the loss of good men who had meant so much to them and who had made the ultimate act of self-sacrifice in battle. Good men that they both felt they had failed.

They were a collection of lost and lonely fuck ups - except for Steve as it seemed deeply unpatriotic to Clint to call Captain America a fuck up, although the lost and lonely part most definitely still applied - that had become the best friends Clint, who had always felt like the biggest lost and lonely fuck up in the world, had ever had. 

It just wasn’t quite enough to assuage his guilt over all the death and carnage he had caused. 

There was one person missing from the group, from their fucked up little family, and it was the one person that Clint _needed_ to forgive him, the one person he _needed_ to tell him it was alright and that he had done the best he could under the circumstances.

It would never happen though because that one person was dead.

 

And then, suddenly, he wasn’t.

Never had been.

Not for any significant period anyway. 

In this job you were a rarity if you hadn’t been at least technically, if not actually, dead for at least a few seconds on at least one mission. It was almost a rite of passage into Level 4. 

Medically induced comas while they used some weirdass, unholy mix of medicine and magic to fix you did not count as dead in Clint’s book.

The way they’d found out that Coulson was alive had hurt almost as much as the actual fact.

The Avengers had all been gathered in the communal kitchen, decompressing after a successful mission, grabbing food and drinks and in the midst of the informal debrief that they always seemed to fall into these days when JARVIS had switched on the TV screen and interrupted them with a shocked sounding - and until that point Clint had no idea that an AI, even one as fine as JARVIS, _could_ be shocked - if still terminally polite ‘excuse me sirs, madam, I believe you should see this’ and started playing the first of the YouTube videos he managed to grab before SHIELD took it down, adding more on repeat as they appeared online. SHIELD was fast but JARVIS was faster.

And there he was, in all his mild fucking mannered glory.

Agent Coulson.

Phil.

In the middle of Union Station.

Being Phil.

And, more importantly, very emphatically 

Being

Not 

Dead.

There was stunned stillness, silence, then...well Clint had no other descriptor for it than pure fucking bedlam exploding around him as his knees had given out and he’d dropped to the floor.

There was yelling, screaming, pointing, shitloads of gesticulating, various creative cursing in Fury’s general direction, much of it in Russian, and then a mad dash to the elevator and, Clint presumed from his place on the floor, SHIELD headquarters to rip Fury a new one.

At least they hadn’t made it all the way to the lobby before noticing he wasn’t with them, the elevator doors pinging open again less than a minute later and then hands under his armpits, Steve’s and Tony’s he thought, lifting him to his feet and dragging him along with them, bundling him into one of Tony’s cars and hustling him all the way through SHIELD HQ and straight into Fury’s office.

Clint felt at the time that is was probably a good thing that Phil was on the other side of the country. Seeing Phil on an 80 inch TV screen had been hard enough. In the flesh would have been impossible. 

And Clint still just...can’t.

Can’t face Phil.

Can’t ask, beg, for forgiveness because what if Phil says no? 

Not that Clint thinks he would but what if he does?

What if Phil, like so many others at SHIELD, is _afraid_ of him? 

What if he hates Clint for what he did?

Clint knew that would end him and so he stayed away from anywhere Phil might be. 

For three months.

It hadn’t been all that hard as, between Assembling and his SHIELD missions and Phil’s new assignment, he and Phil were in New York or Washington at the same time on no more than a handful of occasions. When you added in Clint’s arrangement with JARVIS to monitor the comms and let him know when Phil was in town then avoiding an accidental meeting became surprisingly easy, even given the efforts of his team mates to get them together and the fact that Clint was now living in the Tower. 

All of which left Clint, as he reached the end of the short hallway, asking himself a question he never thought he would ever have to. 

What, the actual fuck, is Phil doing on the couch in the common area in the Avengers Tower in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon?

Clint stood frozen in the entranceway, completely unprepared for seeing the back of Phil’s head and the arch of his back as he leaned forward over the files he had spread out over the coffee table, one hand reaching out for his mug of coffee as the other closed one folder and reached for the next, the actions causing his pale blue shirt to stretch tightly enough over his shoulders that Clint could see the outline of his undershirt.

Clint took in a silent, calming breath. Phil hadn’t seen him, couldn’t possibly have heard him due to the ridiculously thick carpeting that Tony insisted on in the hallway, and so all he had to do was turn around and he would be back on the elevator before Phil was any the wiser to his presence. 

He moved to step back out of the room, thinking it should be a relatively simple task. He was, after all, trained in multiple stealth techniques, had spent fucking _hours_ practising moving in complete silence. Hell, he could even manage to sneak up and take Natasha completely by surprise.

Once.

Kind of.

Maybe.

She might just have been humouring him for her own purposes.

Regardless, Clint thought, Phil would never know he had ever been there. He slowly, carefully, shifted his weight onto his back foot. 

He could absolutely do this.

“Agent Barton. Long time, no see.”

Or maybe he couldn’t. 

Phil didn’t look up while he put his mug back down at the exact centre of a coaster, or even pause in the notes he was writing in the margin of the document in front of him as he reached out for the next folder. The man always could multitask like no one’s business, which was something that Clint had always been impressed by. Clint was no longer allowed coffee, or any liquid or foodstuffs for that matter, within 20 feet of his field reports. 

Clint shifted his weight forward again and walked into the room as if that had always been his intention. He could do this. All he had to do was open his mouth and let words out. He was really good at that. With any luck those words would make some kind of sense when he strung them together. He would say hello on his way past to the kitchen, grab some pizza, say goodbye on the way back to the elevator, get into his own apartment and lock the door behind him. Then...open the window, rappel down to ground level and hitch a lift to...Greenland. Or maybe Nepal. It was supposed to be nice there at this time of year. “Uh. Yeah. Been busy. Missions, Assembling, that kinda thing. Your back’s gonna hate you if you keep sitting hunched over like that.”

“My back already hates me. We had a major falling out sometime around Minsk. Something about lugging around a semi-conscious archer with a broken ankle and torn ACL for two hours that my back refuses to forgive me for.” Phil closed the folder and sat up, rolling his shoulders carefully as he looked at Clint where he sat in one of the armchairs at right angles to the couch, the one that gave him the clearest sightlines around the room and to all the exits. Phil was fairly certain he was as surprised that Clint had sat down as Clint looked to be that he was sitting. “Have you learned how to use fire escapes correctly yet?”

Clint’s bow case had ended up on his lap as he had sat down and he ran his hands slowly over the length of it as he decided what to do, what to say. If he got up again and tried to make it to the kitchen now he would look like even more of an idiot than Phil probably thought he was. Trying to carry on a conversation was really his only option. He slid his bow case off his lap to sit on the floor by his feet. “You have to admit, I do fall with a certain amount of style.”

A ghost of a smile traced Phil’s lips. “I’ll take that as a no.”

Clint couldn’t quite manage to keep his eyes on Phil’s face, couldn’t risk meeting Phil’s eyes and seeing what might be there, but he was pretty sure the small smile Phil gave him could be classified as fond. Clint could work with that. He’d been expecting a lot more glaring and that thin lipped look he got when Phil was _really_ mad at him. This felt a lot more like a continuation of where they had left off. “In my defence, there is generally someone, or something, trying to cause me bodily harm at the time.”

“One of these days the bad guys are going to figure out you can do a much more efficient job of that on your own than they could ever hope too. Then you’ll be in real trouble.”

The conversation carried on for a little longer, a little awkwardly Clint felt, like he had somehow forgotten how to talk to the man that he had shared things with about his life that he had never told anyone else, and Clint was back to planning his escape when Phil said, “So I ended up in Northport a couple of months ago.”

Clint smiled broadly, a whole slew of good memories awakening at the mention of the site of one of Strike Team Delta’s last missions together before Loki. “No shit? Did you go to the diner?”

It was supposed to have been a simple in and out, a milk run really, a weird kind of r & r that Fury’s sick sense of humour called a reward on their way back from the mission in Bolivia that had gone tits up so spectacularly and yet they’d still managed to get everyone out alive despite a rogue agents best efforts. It should have taken one day tops, just slip a sedative that would also mimic the symptoms of a stroke into the mark’s meal and have him picked up by the SHIELD agents posing as paramedics. Clint had been in his element as the short order cook, tasked with dosing the correct meal once Natasha, waitress for the day, identified the mark and took his order.

But then the man hadn’t shown as expected that day. Or the next day. Or the next. Clint had loved every second of it, Natasha not so much.

Phil smiled. “Of course I did. But I have to say, the cook they have now? Not a patch on you.”

Clint, as was his habit again these days, ignored the compliment although he was still smiling as he said, “It was one hell of a mission.” By the end of the week Natasha, hot, sweaty and itchy in her pink, frilly, nylon uniform dress and only little more than halfway through a ten hour shift, had been ready to kill the next person that smacked her butt as she walked past them, and that included the restaurant manager. She might not have been able to talk directly to Phil, who was back at the safehouse and monitoring everything on the CCTV system they had patched into and upgraded, but her eyes and expressions were eloquent enough every time she so much as glanced at one of the cameras. Clint had found it all hysterically funny, Natasha’s wild-eyed looks every time she had escaped to the kitchen for five minutes and Phil’s voice almost constantly in his ear as Phil tried to keep Natasha calm. Clint had never seen her so close to blowing her cool and their cover. “Who would have thought all it took to break the Black Widow was to get her a simple waitressing gig?” 

“Yes, well, it probably would’ve helped if you hadn’t been having such a good time,” Phil suggested as he stretched out to pick up his coffee and took a brief sip.

Clint relaxed further back against the corner of his armchair, turning more towards Phil as he did so. “Man, I couldn’t help it. I had never seen her so...so flustered.”

“It was an experience.” The whole mission hadn’t been anywhere near as much fun for Phil, not with the way the stupid cold that he had picked up had worsened, making his voice progressively scratchier and weaker as the days had gone on. “We were just lucky that you were a good enough cook that people were prepared to overlook a slightly truculent waitress. I think you increased their business by at least 200% the week we were there.”

“Yeah, it was cool working in a kitchen like that again but that wasn’t what made it such fun by the end. It was you. I had never heard you so talkative over the comm.” Clint’s voice shifted into a more than passable imitation of Coulson’s accent and cadence. 

_“No, Agent. Killing him would not serve the greater good.”_

_“No. Not even just a little bit dead.”_

_“No maiming either.”_

_“It’s only one more day.”_

_“Yes, I am aware I said that 3 days ago.”_

_“C’mon, Romanoff, if you can deal with Stark and not lose it this should be a walk in the park.”_

_“Yes, I’m sorry, I know I said I would never mention him again unless completely necessary. Please forgive me.”_

Phil grinned as Clint broke down laughing. “From what I recall I was barely audible by that point, I’m surprised you could make out what I was saying.”

“Oh, oh and then we had my personal favourite.” Clint had his laughter back under control but barely as he spoke again. 

_“How about I promise to let you beat on Barton later if you make it through the shift? Would that help?”_

Phil could only smile as Clint laughed even harder. 

Clint eventually got himself back under control again although the laughter hadn’t entirely stopped. “I don’t know what we would have done if the mark hadn’t turned up soon after. Your voice was gone by then.”

“If you remember it was awol for a few days. Who knew paralyzed vocal cords was even a thing?” Phil leaned forward to put his empty cup back on the coffee table. 

“I remember we had to wait 12 hours for extraction and you...” Clint pointed at Phil for emphasis. “...you stopped eating.”

“And you know it wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I couldn’t, it was too painful to swallow. The only thing I thought I could handle was soup and we didn’t have any. And so you, instead of bringing back a tin from the store like you were supposed to, you _made_ me Chicken Noodle soup. From scratch.” 

Clint shrugged like it wasn’t any kind of a big deal. “Homemade soup is always better for you than tinned. Plus, I was bored. It filled the time.” 

“It was the best soup I had ever tasted. I could have cried when you smuggled some into Medical for me.”

Clint smiled. “Repayment for all the times you busted me out of there early.”

Phil paused for a moment, reluctant to break this mood they’d found and fallen into so easily again. It was a comfortable silence that surrounded them, companionable, Clint smiling softly to himself, lost in his memory. It had been so good to hear Clint laugh like that again. It was the best sound in the world. “I could have done with some in Tahiti.”

Clint’s smile disappeared and his eyes dropped to his hands in his lap. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like you actually knew I was there.”

Which they both knew was a whole other conversation. Because Phil _remembers_ talking to Clint and Natasha when he was in the hospital. _Remembers_ their visits and conversations about how it would be better all round if he wasn’t the Avengers handler after his recuperation. How they were happy for him and his new mission and were sure they’d still have opportunities to work together in the future.

All of which had made the moment that Natasha had strode onto the Bus while they were on the ground for resupply and maintenance, about a month after the incident with Peterson in LA, and confronted Phil with a yelled _You asshole. Did you not think about what it would do to Barton to see you up and walking around? Would it have killed you to pick up a phone and call him?_ somewhat of a shock. The conversation that followed Phil’s angry _What the hell are you talking about? He told me he was happy and fine and looking forward to working more autonomously. He sounded happy_ was by turns confusing and disturbing as it revealed that Phil’s memories of his treatment and recovery has been manipulated. He was still trying to figure out by how much.

“No, not for not bringing you soup. For the, y’know. The, uh...” Clint waved his hand in a vague circle over his chest. “The whole...dead...thing.”

“Not your fault.” Phil responded firmly.

“Yeah, it kinda was.”

“No. It. Wasn’t.” Phil enunciated each word clearly, not liking the way that Clint had curled in on himself and was back to not quite looking at him. “None of it was.”

“Maybe not the actual...” Clint made a brief stabbing motion with his hand. “But I still fucked up a lot of other shit that led to you walking into that room.”

“No. _You_ didn’t.”

Clint shook his head dismissively. “Semantics.”

“Truth,” Phil insisted. “Barton, Clint, look at me. Please.” Phil waited until Clint looked over and held his gaze. “Loki did it. _All_ of it.”

There was silence for a while after that. What Phil was saying wasn’t anything Clint hadn’t heard before.

Intellectually, he knew the whole Loki, Chitauri invasion, Coulson dying, destruction of large parts of New York debacle wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t stupid. He might not have had much of a formal education but while that meant he couldn’t spell for shit, spell check was very, very definitely Clint’s best fucking friend in the world, he does know what the big words mean. He’d been forced, Fury had made it mandatory for them all but especially ‘I will hunt you down, drag you there, and sit on you to keep you there if necessary’ mandatory for Clint, to listen to and talk to more psychiatrists, psychologists, grief counsellors, etc than Clint cared to count. He understood it, understood them, all, even if he did want to punch that one obscenely patronising guy but Nat had wanted to punch that guy too so that made it okay, and he had agreed with them. 

Or, more accurately, because Clint can compartmentalize like a motherfucker, he’d been a pro at it for most of his life, he had _said_ all the right things convincingly enough that they had _believed_ he agreed with them, _believed_ that he understood and accepted that he had been blameless once Loki had taken control of him, and so had signed off on letting him back to active duty.

But deep down, deep down where it really counted and still hurt to even _think_ of Phil never mind talk about him, Clint _knew_ it was _all_ his fault.

He should have fought back harder.

Sure, he hadn’t taken the kill shots on Fury or Hill, or even the Helicarrier when it came down to it, but that wasn’t enough. Not by a long way. 

He should never have allowed himself to become the one taking the shots in the first place. 

He should have been faster. 

Shouldn’t have so stupidly let Loki get close enough to enslave him. 

Shouldn’t have even entertained the glimmer of the idea that he was good enough, smart enough, to outwit and restrain a fucking demi-god.

That he had been so easily compromised was _his_ own fault and so everything that followed was his fault too.

It was his fault that Loki had got away with the Tesseract. 

His fault that Selvig had obtained the materials he needed to open the portal. 

His fault that the assault on the helicarrier had been so successful. 

His fault that Coulson had been killed.

All.

His.

Fault.

 

“You were my first choice. You know that, right?”

“Huh?” Clint drew up and took a sharp breath when Phil’s voice broke into his thoughts. “For what?”

“Specialist. When I was putting my new team together.”

“No. But then I didn’t even know it was _your_ team at the time. Only figured that one out after Nat went to see you. As far as I could figure out the offer of the assignment was Fury’s way of getting me out of his sight and out of mind. He played the pitch just right.” Clint attempted a smile but it turned out as more of a grimace.

“I see.” Phil had wondered about that, if Fury had actually spoken to Clint or if that was just another of Fury’s lies because it would have been a massive risk. If Clint had agreed and taken the assignment it would have begun to unravel Fury’s plan for Phil that much sooner. Fury must have pitched it just right for Clint to have given him the answer he needed to keep his tapestry of lies together a little longer. “So you did what he expected and turned him down to piss him off by staying right here.”

Clint shook his head. “No. That was just an added bonus. I’m sure he still thinks he was being very clever.”

“Then why?”

“Nat. I...I needed.” Clint glanced over to Phil and looked away just as quickly. “I’d lost you. I couldn’t...couldn’t be away from her too.”

Phil looked at Clint carefully for a long moment, considering, not doubting for a second that Fury had been relying on just that level of separation anxiety as well. Fury had certainly made sure Natasha had been out of the country and under radio silence when he had made the offer and no doubt pushed Clint for a quick reply. It had all been stupidly cruel and unnecessary. “But you still would have turned the job down if you’d known it was me.”

It hadn’t really been a question, more a statement of fact, but Clint answered anyway. “Yeah.”

“Care to share why?”

“Obvious, isn’t it?”

“Am I in the habit of asking questions I already know the answer too?”

“Frequently.” Clint managed to quirk a smile as he answered but when there wasn’t even the tiniest glimmer of it being returned it quickly fell. 

“Clint, you were, are, _always_ my first choice.”

A twitch of a frown crossed Clint’s face and he shook his head. “Ward is good.”

“Not as good as you,” Phil insisted as he leant forward.

“Better than me,” Clint corrected as he finally looked over to Phil again and held his eye. “He’s managed to keep you alive, hasn’t he?”

Phil didn’t answer, just stared at Clint for another long moment before asking, “Can I show you something?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess.”

Clint was silent as he followed Phil to the elevator and until the doors were closing after Phil had asked Jarvis to take them to his apartment level. “So, you live here now?”

Phil kept his eyes trained on the red numbers counting the floors. “Yes. For about 2 weeks. I needed somewhere and Stark was kind enough to offer. I moved in when you and Natasha were en route to Manila.”

“No one told me.” Clint’s eyes flicked to the ceiling. “Traitor.”

“I am very sorry, Agent Barton,...” Jarvis’ voice filled the space in the elevator and Clint had to acknowledge to himself that the AI did sound sincerely apologetic, “...but your protocol was overwritten before I realised what was happening.”

Phil shook his head and looked over at Clint. “Don’t blame JARVIS, or Stark. No one told you because I asked them not to so this is all on me.”

Clint took a step sideways and leant against the elevator wall, frowning as he looked at the floor. “Okay.” 

Phil’s hand lifted to reach out to touch Clint’s arm but he pulled it back. “It was only because I wanted the chance to talk to you but I knew you’d be in the wind if you had advance warning.”

Clint looked back up as the elevator doors opened and asked quietly, “Did Nat know?”

Phil paused before replying which was really all the answer that Clint needed. “Yes.”

Somewhere inside, Clint knew that Natasha and the others arranged this...ambush, yeah, that’s the word, with the best of intentions. That they set him up to be alone in the Tower with Phil because they cared about him. But right now he was too pissed off at them to even acknowledge that thought. He pushed himself away from the wall and followed Phil to his apartment door. “So what did you want to show me?”

Phil opened his apartment door and indicated that Clint should enter first. “You figure it out.”

As he stepped into the room Clint’s eyes were immediately drawn to the 1:6 scale Hawkeye model in pride of place amongst a display of Phil’s favourite Cap memorabilia that sat on a small bookcase underneath a full set of framed, signed, Captain America trading cards on the wall. He looked at Phil incredulously. “Where...why…?”

Phil smiled as he looked at the cards. “Tony bought them for me but I think it may have been Pepper’s idea. He refuses to tell me how much he paid but they can’t have been cheap. He says they’re a, and I’m quoting directly here, combined housewarming, yay, glad you’re not dead, double yay, present.”

“Not the fu...not the cards.” Clint pointed to his action figure. “Why the fuck is that thing there with all your favourite stuff?”

Phil didn’t get the chance to reply before Clint walked past him when he caught sight of the display shelves through the open doorway of what could only be Phil’s home office. 

The room housed the bulk of what Clint knew was Phil’s extensive Captain America collection but there were also many items that Clint couldn’t accept belonged there and his brain baulked at what he was seeing, refusing to compute and comprehend what he was confronted with, because why the fuck would Phil be fucking _collecting_ Hawkeye merchandise? How in the hell could he even stand to look at the stuff? 

It turned out that it wasn’t just the one Hawkeye action figure that Phil had. It looked like he had one of _everything_ , from the tiniest little Lego figure all the way up to the ridiculously expensive, limited edition, statues. Coulson had given him a whole, large, shelf, right at eye level. The only thing missing was the...his eyes caught sight of the box containing the entirely awesome NERF bow propped up against the bottom shelf and he glanced over to Phil.

“Why?”

Phil gave a little shrug. “I haven’t decided on the best way to display it yet.”

“No, not...that’s not what I...okay, yeah, I get that part, it’s not really meant...not what I was talking about.” Clint had crossed the space to the shelves while his brain tried to catch up with what was happening and picked up the box containing the bow, shifting the conversation to a much, much safer topic, a rehash of an old argument about Coulson’s Captain America collection. “You do get that it’s meant to be played with, right? Not, not _displayed_.”

Phil made a non-commital noise as he passed Clint to make a minute adjustment to the positioning of one of the smaller figures. “I get that it’s sized so that it fits in and can be... _played_ with whilst inside the larger air vents in the public areas at Shield HQ.”

A flicker of a smile twitched at Clint’s lips. “Does it really? I had no idea.”

“I don’t suppose you have any idea about the foam tipped arrows that hit the back of the WSC members heads as they toured the facility last month either?”

“I prefer the idea that you consider me appropriately shocked that anyone would do such a thing to such fine, upstanding and productive members of society.”

“Not sure those are the words I’d used to describe them.”

Clint put the box down and turned to face Phil. “What words would you use?”

“None that could be repeated in polite company.”

Clint nodded to the War Bonds posted on the wall behind Phil. “Or that _you_ can say in front of Cap, more like.” 

Whatever Phil was going to say next was lost as Clint’s attention was caught by something else because there, propped up against the end of Phil’s desk, was another copy of that damned circus poster, framed no less and waiting to be hung. Clint picked it up and looked at it for a moment before turning it around and holding it in front of himself with a hand on either side of the frame, one eyebrow quirked questioningly at Phil. 

“I like it. I was thinking of hanging it over my bed. It would be like you were watching over me sleep like you used to on missions.”

“Thaaat’s....kinda creepy, sir. When you put it like that.”

“I miss it though. I always felt safest knowing you had my back.”

Cint put the poster back down, facing the desk and away from the room this time. “Yeah, right up until I didn’t when it really counted.”

Phil was grateful that Clint was at least still holding his gaze. “It wasn’t your call, Clint. My safety wasn’t your responsibility. Not that day. Something had to be done and I did it. _I_ walked into that room with Loki. I _chose_ to do that of my own volition. It was _my_ decision. Do not presume you or anyone else could have had any influence on it. You need to start forgiving yourself for things that no one else blames...”

“But it was my fucking fault he was there!” Clint yelled. “It was _my_ hands, _my_ knowledge that got him what he needed, got him on the carrier. He couldn’t have...he...he...I should’ve...I couldn’t stop...and he...he...was in my head. So, so many people. Agents. And I...I killed them, Phil. It...it’s my fault you...you died.” Clint’s anger and energy had been leaving as he spoke and as he looked over at Phil again all the fight gone from him. All that was left was the guilt and self-hatred. “You died because I fucked up. You died, Phil and it was my fault.” 

Phil was all out of words and so he did the one thing he suspected no one else has tried, or dared, to do.

It wasn’t even all that blatant. 

Just the slightest opening of his stance, the barest lift of his arms and stretch of his fingers towards Clint. 

A murmur of, “C’mere.”

And Clint was all up in Phil’s space, pressing close and dropping his forehead to Phil’s shoulder, shuddering, as Phil’s arms folded around him. “I’m sorry. I am so fucking sorry.”

“I know.” Phil’s arms tightened and he breathed deeply. “I’ve got you.”


End file.
